


The Elephant and the Thorn

by kumarei



Category: Hitherby Dragons - Jenna Moran
Genre: Alternate Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:38:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kumarei/pseuds/kumarei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why do people hurt? Why do people have to suffer, and fear, and die?</p>
<p>An Alternate Answer to Suffering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Soot Elephant (I/IV)

There are two types of soot webs. There are the soot webs that are created by spiders. These are terrible webs indeed. They are constructed in such a way that wherever you turn, you bind yourself further and further into the web. You are unable to perceive reality, and the entirety of your perception is turned to the song of the spider.

Then there are the soot webs that are created by the elephants. You may think that it is absurd that an elephant would construct a web. And you are correct. But that is the point. As rare and dangerous as the webs constructed by the soot spiders are, the webs of the elephants are both more rare and more dangerous.

The web of the spider is just inescapable. As everybody who has ever seen a movie about Alcatraz knows, anybody can escape from an inescapable prison, so long as they are clever.

An elephant’s web is different, though. Even if you escape from an elephant’s web, the web stays with you. There is nothing you can ever do.

 

**[The Elephant and the Thorn]**

 

It is 1979 and Melanie is 7 and she is caught in the web of a soot elephant. She can’t see the elephant, because her eyes are burning with soot. But she can hear it. It advances slowly, with patience. Every step is minutes, or hours, or maybe days or years apart. Each time she hears a step, Melanie wants to cry.

But she doesn’t. She bites her lip until it bleeds, and she tastes the blood on her tongue. Soot is laced through it, and it tastes foul. It gets in her lip and hurts her. But she doesn’t cry.

“Did you think I would forget you, Melanie?” the elephant asks. It is somewhere between ten feet and thirty seven miles away from her.

Melanie doesn’t answer. She’s never seen the elephant before, so she doesn’t know what to say.

“I would never forget you, child,” the elephant says.

“I’m not a child!” Melanie objects. “I’m _seven_.”

“I have seen the birth and death of stars. The rise and fall of civilizations. I have lived since long before you were born, and I will live long after you die,” the elephant says. “You are a child.”

Melanie has nothing to say to this. She just clutches tight the knife in her hand, and waits for the elephant to approach.

“Dear child,” the elephant says, and his voice seems to be right next to Melanie’s ear.

Melanie slashes out at it, but her knife slices nothing but air. She loses her balance and falls back on the soot covered floor.

“Silly girl,” the elephant says. Its voice is far away now, about a million billion miles. “I remember your knife. I remember everything.”

The soot is inside Melanie’s nose and inside her mouth and in her blood, and it takes every bit of her not to sob out loud. But Melanie is strong. Melanie doesn’t sob, just sniffles a little bit. Even if someone accused her of crying, she could always say that the soot was tickling her nose, and it would be true.

“This is the part,” says the elephant, “where you ask me riddles.”

“Why?” Melanie asks.

“Because that’s what you do. When you’re dying and there’s nothing left inside you but burning and you need the time to kill me.”

Melanie can’t argue with that. She wracks her brain. “What’s gray,” she says, “and wrinkly, and lives at the top of a tree.”

“An elephant,” the elephant says.

“No,” Melanie says, but the elephant is right. Its an elephant that lives on top of a tree.

The elephant ignores her protest. “   
What always runs but never walks, often murmurs, never talks, has a bed but never sleeps, has a mouth but never eats?”

Melanie thinks. She thinks and thinks and thinks, but she can’t answer. She’s hungry and tired, and the soot is opening wounds all through her body and she hurts. She has no answer.

“It’s a spider,” the elephant says. “One that’s starving and has insomnia. Your turn.”

“What is gray and wrinkly and fights fires?” Melanie asks. It’s a trick question. The answer he’s supposed to give is ‘an elephant’. He’s supposed to get angry, to come close to her without noticing. And then Melanie is supposed to cut him.

“A very old fireman,” the elephant says, but it isn’t angry, and it isn’t close to her. Its very far away, but its voice echoes so it seems like its everywhere. “The more you have of it, the less you see. What is it?”

Melanie is blind. The soot is in her eyes. She rubs at it. “Soot,” she says.

“The answer is ‘no eyes’,” the elephant says, “but given the current circumstances, I’ll accept your answer. Your turn.”

And Melanie has it. The question that will defeat the elephant. The question that will bring it close to her, will let her kill it. It is the question that will free her from the web. She laughs.

The elephant waits patiently for her to speak. It doesn’t move, it takes no steps toward her. It it completely silent.

“Why do people hurt?” Melanie asks. “Why do people have to suffer, and fear, and die?”

And there is a silence. It stretches on forever and then a little bit longer. Then Melanie hears a single step right next to her, and she grins madly and prepares to attack the elephant. Just as she is about to strike, though, it speaks.

It does not say much. It does not speak loudly, or menacingly. There is nothing in the elephant’s voice to cause a shiver to run up Melanie’s spine, to cause her to freeze in place, unable to move. There is nothing in the elephant’s voice that should cause her to break. Not Melanie. Not seven year old Melanie, who is cunning and so very strong.

But the elephant speaks five words in Melanie’s ear, and she freezes in place. In that moment, she understands that there’s nothing that she can do. She cannot kill the elephant. She cannot escape. Even if she leaves this web, it will stay with her forever.

When she hears these words, Melanie breaks.

“They hurt,” says the elephant, “because of me.”


	2. Stupid Elephants and their Stupid Power, Anyway (II/IV)

“It is…” Melanie says, and stops.

Liril looks at her. “It’s what?”

Melanie struggles, but she can’t say it. It’s right there, in the room, watching her. Her mouth feels like it’s closed with wires though.

“Melanie,” Liril says.

“Why do we suffer?” Melanie asks. “Why do we have to suffer, and fear, and die?”

“We don’t,” Liril says.

“No,” Melanie says. “Not ‘we don’t.’ It is ‘because of…’” She tries to complete the sentence, but she can’t.

Liril looks blank.

“It’s right there,” Melanie says, gesturing toward the elephant. Liril looks where she’s pointing, but obviously doesn’t see anything. Melanie wants to cry in frustration. Instead she laughs. She laughs and laughs, and Liril just stares at her in incomprehension.

The elephant stands there, taking up more than half the bedroom. It’s smiling at her. Elephants don’t really have many facial expressions, not that humans can see, but its eyes are full of glee. If the elephant laughed, it would be laughing. But not with Melanie.

“Why did it step on a grape?” Melanie asked.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Liril said.

“The cause of suffering,” Melanie said. “Why did it step on a grape?”

Liril shakes her head.

“He thought it was a pair of shoes.”

The elephant doesn’t think it’s a funny joke, but he doesn’t do anything. He just stands there, staring. Just like Liril does.

 _Please,_ Liril thinks,  _Please go away._

Then she says it. “Please,” she says. “Please go away.”

Melanie stops giggling. Her face twists into a look of pain and shock. “There’s nothing?” Melanie asks. “Nothing you can give me to fight it?”

“I’m sorry,” Liril says. “I told you. Not you. Never you.”

Melanie glares at the elephant. “I’ll find it,” she says. “I’ll find some way. You haven’t won.”

 

  
**[The Elephant and the Thorn]**   


 

  
_1982 CE_   


 

Melanie goes to visit the monster. The monster is very busy when she finds him. He is making plans. He has no time for a ten year old!

“Hello,” Melanie says.

The monster is not bothered by Melanie’s sudden appearance. He is surprised, but he is very good at not showing it, so instead he keeps working on his plans.

“I said hello,” Melanie says.

“I heard you,” the monster says. “I’m busy.”

Melanie frowns. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the elephant. It’s watching her with interest.

“I need power,” she says.

“So do we all,” the monster says. He looks over at her. “Do you know what you’ve risked by walking in here?”

“I am strong,” says Melanie. She holds up Billy’s head. She thinks she sees the monster flinch at that. “Did you have plans for him?”

The monster considers. “None that I can’t change. What do you need strength for?”

“I can’t say,” Melanie says. She can’t. The elephant has her tongue. “I need all of it, though.” There’s a certain look in her eyes. One that is ready to break the world.

The monster smiles. It’s not the kind of smile that you expect to see on a monster. It’s quite pleasant, really. “Work for me, then,” he says. “I’ll teach you a game.”

“I’m here for power, not games,” Melanie says.

“In this case,” the monster says, “they’re the same thing.”


	3. Whatever Can Bear the Weight (III/IV)

I will tell you a story.

It’s important to understand that this story is relevant to all that you’ve heard before. I’ll tell you this story, even though you might not have thought to wonder it. It’s time you know who it is that holds the throne of the world.

And hold it he does: carries the whole world upon his back, holds it as it rotates above him.

He took the world, and he stamped on it until it was flat. Then he put it on his back.

He flung back his head.

He trumpeted.

The whole world shook.

Thus it was when the elephant first ascended to the throne.

 

Do you know what it means, for the cause of suffering to hold the treasure wheel?

It means that nothing can ever be right. It means that suffering is inherent to the structure of karma, that the only answer to suffering is more suffering.

And the only answer to the elephant is defiance.


	4. Defiant (IV/IV)

Micah’s in the kitchen, making tea and finger sandwiches, when four things enter. Three of them are unsurprising, but the fourth one seems out of place. She’s a young woman, somewhere in her twenties.

They’re all wearing suits and sunglasses. They all have nametags.

“Would you like sandwiches?” Micah asks. “Or tea?”

“We don’t have time for that,” the woman says, flopping down in a kitchen chair. “What’s your name?”

“Didn’t he tell you?” Micah asks.

The woman shrugs. “He just said to get the boy with Liril.”

“It’s Micah,” Micah says.

“From formica?” she asks.

“That’s two prepositions in a row,” Micah says. “I can’t understand your crazy monster language.”

“Melanie,” the woman says absently, taking a cookie from the bowl on the table.

“Yes,” Micah agrees. “It would be.”

She looks down at her nametag. She blushes a little. “Yes.”

“I’m not going with you,” Micah says.

“You don’t have a choice,” Melanie says, gesturing at the three men standing around.

Micah looks at their nametags. “Your nametags don’t match,” he says. He looks at Melanie’s. “Especially yours.”

Melanie shrugs. “So what?” She turns to one of the men. “Like I said, we don’t have time for this. Do your thing.”

One of the men steps forward. His nametag says Anakopto. “Stop,” he says.

Micah stops in place.

“Do you know why we’re taking you, and not the girl?” he asks.

“I’m the one who defies you.”

“Yes,” agrees the man whose nametag reads Arpazo.

“Could I have a nametag with that?” Micah asks. “Micah. Defiant?”

****

**[The Elephant and the Thorn]**

 

October 17, 1995

 

“I hate to say this, but you aren’t doing much to impress,” Melanie says. “Your lackeys are useless.”

The monster looks at her with annoyance. “I sent you with them,” the monster said. “You were supposed to be in charge of that mission. It seems like it would be your failure.”

Melanie shook her head. “Micah beat them, without blinking.”

“Then why didn’t you bring him in?”

“Is that what you want?” Melanie asks, smiling. “If your men bring him in with me as the leader, that’s your victory. But if I bring him in where your people failed, then it’s my victory.”

“You are one of my people,” the monster says.

“No,” Melanie said, “I’m not. Under normal circumstances, I’d be terrified of you. I’d worry that you’d think:  what if she thinks I can’t handle this place and decides to take over? I’d better start hurting her immediately. But there’s nothing that you can do to me that could be worse than…” She glances over at the elephant, who’s standing at the side of the room watching her. It has a crown of thorns on its head, and blood dripping down the sides of its ears. Its hatred burns through her.

“Sometimes I wonder what’s inside your brain,” the monster says. “Someday I’m going to open up your head and find out.”

“You could do that,” Melanie says. “You aren’t going to, though. You shouldn’t make empty threats.”

“You know,” says the monster, “how Amiel never really stopped talking?”

“Yes,” Melanie says.

“Resist the habit,” the monster says. “I’m gonna go sort this out.”

“I’m coming with you,” Melanie says.

The monster is thrown off. Melanie should have stayed quiet for minutes after his declaration. “Fine,” he says.

 

They drive to Liril’s house, and get out of the car. They walk up to the house. Liril and Priyanka are outside. Melanie grins at Liril as she walks by.

Inside, Micah is playing with post-it notes. He’s labeled everything in the room by its name. He looks up when the monster enters.

Micah looks ragged. There’s something about his expression that says that he’s seen so much that there’s nothing you can do to him. He is deliberately avoiding looking at a corner of the room.

It’s the corner where the elephant stands.

On Micah’s chest, there’s a post-it note. It says, “Micah. 100% effective against monsters.”

The monster shakes his head. He walks over to Micah. “Did you really think that would work?” the monster asks. He reaches out for the note.

In a second, the thorn that does not kill is at his throat.

“Ah,” he says. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Melanie grinning. It annoys him. “We don’t have to do this, you know,” the monster says. “You could come with us, and we’d leave Liril alone.”

“Forever?” Micah asks.

“For now.”

Micah shakes his head. “I can’t.”

The monster shrugs, and in that motion everything changes. His wings open.

It happens fast. Even if Micah had been ready for it, really ready, he probably couldn’t have stabbed the monster with the thorn. As it is, the thorn falls from his hand. He doesn’t even try to hold onto it.

He just stands there as the monster reaches out to pull the post-it note from his chest. The monster does it in a fluid motion, the glue from the paper making a quiet noise as it comes free.

The monster sees what was below the post-it note, and he makes his own quiet noise. “Oh,” he says.

A length of sharp steel appears in the center of his neck. It blossoms outward, and deep red blood drips down his throat to decorate the carpet.

The monster gurgles. If it had been intelligble, it might have been an expression of surprise. He collapses to the carpet, revealing Melanie standing behind him.

Melanie bends down and retrieves her knife from the monster’s throat. She wipes it casually on the monster's suit, ignoring the noises coming the hole that she’s left.

“We make a good team,” Melanie says.

“We’re not a team,” Micah says. “I wasn’t going to kill him.” He reaches down and picks up the thorn.

“That’s why we make a good team,” Melanie says. “Anyway, do we really have time for this? There’s someone else that needs our attention.” She turns to the elephant.

Micah turns as well, looking straight at the elephant.

The elephant feels a twinge of consternation. Micah isn’t supposed to be able to see him. It doesn’t matter, though. It won’t help.

The crown of thorns on its head burns, and the room slowly disappears. Everything fades to blackness.

Micah and Melanie feel their arms suddenly constricted as the elephant’s web wraps around them.

“Why do we suffer?” Melanie’s voice is soft, but it still echoes like crazy.

“Because of the elephant,” Micah says. The answer comes easily. He’s seen the elephant for months, and an understanding of what it is has lodged itself deep in his brain.

Melanie smiles as she cuts herself free of her bonds. The severed bits of web are sharp and strong, like barbed wire, and they cut her back. She embrases the suffering and works through it, though. When she’s free enough she goes to work on Micah’s webs.

The elephant is walking towards them. They can hear its footsteps. It’s impossible to tell where they’re coming from, though. It could be miles away or right on top of them.

“Why is a mouse when it spins?” the elephant’s voice boomed.

“Who cares?” Melanie asks.

“The higher the fewer!”

The elephant stepped out of the shadows. Maybe it was the lack of perspective in this place, but it seemed huge, much bigger than it had ever been.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” said Micah.

The elephant ignored him, and took another step toward Melanie.

“What is the difference between a duck?” it asks.

“Who cares?” Melanie asks again, but her voice is quieter.

It’s bearing down on her, and Melanie has backed away from it into the web. She crouches down and tries to protect herself as the elephant brings all its will upon her. She suffers. In that moment, she suffers more than she has in her whole life; more than she suffered from Billy and more than she suffered from the monster.

“One of its legs are both the same,” the elephant says, and Melanie suffers.

“That’s stupid,” Micah says. His voice is loud and strong.

The elephant turns to face him. Melanie whimpers on the ground.

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” the elephant asks. Its will bends down against Micah. He can feel the thorns of the elephant’s crown closing in around him.

“I don’t care,” Micah says. The thorns press down into his shoulders. He doesn’t bend, though. He stands against the elephant’s glare, unblinking.

The elephant moves closer. It brings its head down until it is less than a foot from Micah’s face. Micah can see the wrinkles on its skin. He can taste its rotten breath as it speaks.

“How do you defy me, boy?”

Micah reaches up to his chest. There’s a fragment of web on it, and he moves it aside. The elephant looks down in consternation.

The elephant knew that it was there. It hadn’t forgotten. The elephant never forgets. It just didn’t realize that it was important.

 

**[The Elephant and the Thorn]**

 

May 22, 1995

 

“Could I have a nametag with that?” Micah asks. “Micah. Defiant?”

Melanie shrugs. “Sure,” she says. She pulls a nametag and a sharpie out of her pocket. “Micah,” she writes. “Defiant.” Then she sticks it to his chest.

Micah smiles. Then he sees something behind Melanie. He looks up at it and freezes.

There’s an elephant there. He knows that it’s been there for a long time. He’s just never noticed it before. It scares him, more than he thought that an elephant could.

Melanie notices the look in his eyes, the sudden look of terror. She starts to turn to see what it’s about, until she sees the elephant out the corner of her vision.

Then she turns back to Micah and grabs his throat. “It’s not important,” Melanie says in a loud whisper. “Don’t let it know you can see it.”

She pushes him away.

“Alright,” she says to the men in suits. “Let’s get this over with.”

Micah is stunned. He’s not sure what’s going on. But he understands that the elephant is something powerful. It’s the reason why people suffer. So instead he goes back to what he was doing. He starts making sandwiches again.

“Stop,” says Anakopto.

Micah does not stop, although he wants to. He keeps making sandwiches.

“Stop,” Anakopto says again, but it’s not more effective. Micah defies him.

Arpazo tries next. He holds out his hand. There is a draw for Micah, but again he resists it. Arpazo shakes his head.

The last man, whose name is Kyrievo, and whose nametag also says “love,” steps forward. “Don’t you love me?” he asks.

It breaks Micah’s heart. It breaks his heart because he does love Kyrievo, more than he thought would be possible. It breaks his heart because his answer is “No.”

There is a silence in the room.

Micah feels uncomfortable, so he fills it. “I do love sandwiches, though. And tea.”

“Well,” Melanie says. “There you go. We made the attempt.”

“We can’t leave,” Kyrievo says, “We’ll be put to death.”

Micah feels a twinge for him, but he stays silent.

Melanie shrugs. “We tried. What else can you do?”

“Are you leaving already?” Micah asks. “You don’t want a sandwich?”

Melanie grabs one and takes a bite out of it. “Tuna,” she says.

“It could be my son,” Micah says.

“Is it?” Melanie asks, intrigued.

“No,” Micah says.

“That’s a shame,” Melanie says. “Goodbye then. I’ll be seeing you.”

They walk out of the house.

**[The Elephant and the Thorn]**

 

October 17, 1995

 

“Micah,” the elephant reads. “Defiant?”

Micah nods. “That’s who I am,” he says.

“You have a nametag, and that means that you can defy me?”

“Labels are important,” Micah says. “You’re an elephant. You don’t forget.”

“That’s true,” says the elephant. “I don’t forget. And I don’t forgive.”

It bends its will once more to him, and Micah feels more pain than anyone has felt since the beginning of time. He feels more pain than all of history combined.

And he bends. The elephant brings him to his knees. He crouches there, hands against the ground, panting. But then the elephant lets up for a moment, and Micah looks up at it, a fire in his eyes.

“What’s grey and wrinkled,” Micah says, “and still alive even though it has a hole in its head?”

The elephant is very old. It has held the throne of the world for a long time. And it never forgets. That means that it has a lot of memories. It takes time, sometimes, to sort through them.

It doesn’t help that the elephant has never heard this riddle before. The riddle has never been told in the history of language. That means the elephant has to remember everything before it can come to that answer.

It doesn’t really take that long. Just a couple of seconds. This time, though, Micah is ready.

The thorn is in his hand, and he lunges upward. He plunges it into the elephant’s forehead.

There is a trumpeting scream as the elephant thrashes. Micah is thrown off of it, thorn still in hand.

The damage is done. There is a hole in the elephant’s head, and the thrashing causes the crown of thorns to become dislodged from its skull. It’s still burning.

The darkness fades, and they are back in Liril’s house. The elephant has stopped thrashing, and now is staring at Micah. It looks confused, as if it’s trying to remember something. It does not speak.

Micah watches as Melanie reaches out and grabs the crown of thorns. It burns her hand, and pierces it. Her blood drips to the floor. She doesn’t let it go, though.

She pulls it down onto her brow. It leaves red trails on her scalp. It burns there, and then suddenly it’s gone, and there’s a glow from inside of her. It’s shaped like a torus.

She stands. “Well,” she says.

“Well what?” Micah asks. His eyes are still burning.

“We killed him,” says Melanie, “and stopped the elephant.”

“Is that the end of suffering?” Micah asks.

Melanie grins. “Nope,” she says. “It just means that before now, all suffering was because of the elephant.” She looks down at the monster’s body. “Like, you can’t blame him. What he did was the elephant’s fault.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s someone else’s.” Melanie looks out the window. Liril is still out there. “You know,” she says, “we really do make a good team. Come back to Central with me.”

“No,” says Micah.

“Why not?” Melanie asks. “It’ll be a new Central. I’ll change things.”

Micah points at Melanie’s nametag. “Melanie,” it says, like it always has. Below that, though, was another word. “Monster.”

“Oh,” Melanie says. “Well. I guess I’ll be seeing you around, then.”

Micah nods.

Melanie picks up her knife. She leaves, and despite the little setback, she’s smiling. For once, everything is going her way.


End file.
